Frank Zappa's musical language

A study of the music of Frank Zappa

JOE'S GARAGE: THE EMOTIONAL DIMENSION

The unlimited popularity of the tonal system in western music has a lot to do with its capacity, combined with instrumentation and the way music is performed, to translate emotions into music in a for everybody recognisable form. It's also the way most people like to talk about music, often giving highly subjective interpretations of what the music means in their opinion along with it. Sections of music can express feelings of joy, sadness, anger and relaxation. Why this effect exists is usually not very clear. Dissonants and shouting can be associated with anger or tension, but why some melodic lines have the effect of joy and others don't is hardly explainable. It's better to take it for granted that the three downwards played notes of a minor third have the effect of sadness, and composers looking to maximize recognisable emotional impact probably have a good catalogue in their mind of melody types and their effect (compare "Debra Kadabra" from "Bongo Fury" from 2:44 onwards for a minor third effect).
Music can also be on a more emotionally abstract level, but certainly not less emotional, where it becomes difficult to translate the emotions into words other than "expressive" or "intense" and where the emotions seem to rely more on the pleasure of the listening to the music itself.
Zappa prefers the more abstract level, confirmed by his unwillingness to take his personal life as the subject of his lyrics. He may talk about his lovely wife and children in "The Real Frank Zappa book", but never on his albums.
Zappa's music can be very expressive, but speaking for myself I have no idea how I could describe for instance
the guitar solos on "Shut up 'n play yer guitar" in emotional terms as happiness or tension.
In Zappa's music the whole palette of emotions occurs in such a manner that it gets undefinable in easy terms. This is related to his attitude towards music,
being that he can use any chord in any scale as well as atonal music. He can, but does not specifically look for progressions that express drama in a classical sense.
I'm continuing with this subject with my comment upon the
"San Antonio" guitar solo from "Guitar" (1988). The more abstract level of
musical expression is possibly indicated as a piece of poetry by Zappa himself in "Packard goose":
"Information is not knowledge
Knowledge is not wisdom
Wisdom is not truth
Truth is not beauty
Beauty is not love
Love is not music
Music is THE BEST"
Specifically this last sentence has become well-known, because Zappa frequently used it as a slogan ever since the appearance of "Joe's garage" (next to "Don't
forget to register to vote."). As I'm interpreting this, it means that one can listen to music as a goal entirely by itself.

Related to this is his instrumentation, that is functional for the composition, meant to make the notes audible in a
clear way and not to create ornamental atmospheres or to overwhelm the listeners through sound building. Some exceptions
do exist like the ornamental harp and percussion part at the end of the "Zoot Allures" guitar solo, that have a relaxing
effect. There are also compositions that are specifically about sound effects, like "N-lite" from "Civilization Phaze III".
In general Zappa chooses instruments that are unrelated in their sound so that they can play separately as well as together
in different combinations, and always remain clearly distinguishable. Alternation of sound is the issue rather than the
creation of an overall sound. Furthermore he doesn't raise or bend his voice while singing and he doesn't dance on stage,
which is for pop music standards unusual. Zappa during the Larry King Live interview on this topic (CNN, 1989):
- LK: "How would you describe to someone, who had never heard it, the Zappa sound?"
- FZ: "Well, I do a lot of different kinds of music, and uh, you know, ranging from orchestral music to big band music
to fuzz tone music, so...".
- LK: "There's no Zappa sound then?".
- FZ: "There are many Zappa sounds and you could specialise in one if you want to listen to only guitar type stuff,
then I can give you a list of albums that have that. If you like orchestral music, that's another list, so it's a variety."

JOE'S GARAGE

As far as I'm concerned most note examples presented in this site are of
the emotionally abstract kind. With the ones in this section and the previous Ruben and the Jets section, we're getting at songs
with a better translatable emotional dimension. Most of them can be found on "Freak out", "Cruising with Ruben and
the Jets" and "Joe's garage". Of the infinite range from deepest inner sorrow to sound related expressions as feeling the groove, I've taken
out some basics below.

Act I

1.1 Central scrutinizer

During the opening song, the Central scrutinizer character introduces the play. Speaking through a megaphone,
he's trying to convince people why rock music should be made illegal. This piece gets accompanied by a lengthy vamp,
lasting eight bars. Halfway the song, this vamps steps into the foreground, being played as an instrumental interlude (1:04 through 1:21).

It's another example of Zappa using closely related scales next to each other. Bar 1 follows D Mixolydian, bar 2
is in D Dorian. Bar 5 is step of IV of D Dorian. Bar 6 transposes the marima part up with a major second. This
causes a key change to A Mixolydian. The harmonies are a series of thirds and triads. The synthesizer and duck
quack sounds are only there as irregular embellishment. Towards the end the vamp is drawn back. Here Zappa
is deliberately creating a choatic atmosphere, letting the scrutinizer stumble over its words with a line taken
out of its context. The white zone refers to the area in airport parking spaces, meant for loading and unloading only.
It has nothing to do with the plot of "Joe's garage".

1.2 Joe's garage

Relaxation and the building up of tension are present in the title track of "Joe's garage".
It opens with a slow I-IV intro in E and then, as the sung melody begins, proceeds with I-IV-V.
This movement continues in several shapes, alternated with divers interrupting bars, all in slow tempo.
The ease of the I-IV-V progression expresses Joe's fine memories
of the good old times when he was playing a tune like this with friends in his garage.
At the end of the song, when Joe is complaining about all the new fashions in rock music,
the comfortable I-IV-V environment is left and the tension starts to rise, ending with police
interference.

In the transcription above I've combined the opening and some sections, the last
bar containing the start of tension. In the last two bars beats 1 and 2 of the first one
still contains the I chord from E; on beat 3 this chord gets enlarged to I 9th. In the following bar
the D# and F# are altered to natural and the whole harmony becomes an 11th chord over A. To the right FZ and Ray White singing "Joe's garage" (Paris 1980
show as broadcasted by Antenne 2).

1.3 Catholic girls

The outlines of "Catholic girls" go as:
- 0:00 Instrumental intro.
- 0:11 Theme 1. A melody of two bars in F#. The accompanying chord progression is I-IV-I-VI-V,
like "Joe's garage" at this point quite conventional. See bars 4-6 from the example below.
This theme gets repeated three times, before it ends with a final bar with B-E-C# as chord progression.
- 0:28 Theme 1 four times again, now ending with A-B as chord progression.
- 0:44 Theme 2, a sequence following a modulation scheme: C# Dorian, Gb Lydian, Db Dorian, Ab Mixolydian,
E Dorian, A major/Mixolydian. So here all conventionalism is gone.
- 1:11 Theme 3, another sequence over a chromatically descending bass line.
- 1:22 Theme 1.

- 1:38 Interlude. This part is an instrumental variation upon theme 1 with odd rhythms.
The transcription above contains the end of this section with:
a) Bar 1 in 18/16 with a repeated figure, lasting 9/16. The two altered notes, E and A natural, that
you could hear earlier at the end of theme 1, turn up more explicitly here. It
makes this part more volatile as it comes to what scale it is using. Instead of I-IV
in F# major, you're now hearing I-III in F# Mixolydian with an E natural.
The whole interlude gets characterised by an ongoing stream of notes using D#m7 and Bsus2 as broken chords.
b) Bar 2 in 14/16 with a repeated figure, lasting 7/16. The chords are the same as bar 2 from theme 1.
c) Bar 3 in 22/16 with a repeated figure, lasting 11/16. This figure follows the A-B progression
as played at the end of the first repetition of theme 1. By itself you could call it A Lydian.
d) Bars 4-6 with theme 1.
- 2:09 Themes 1-3 again.
- 3:01 Theme 1 some more, with minor variations.
- 3:17 Theme 1 keeps being repeated to the end as a coda, with improvisations and additions.
- 3:54 With the coda almost faded out, the Central scrutinizer turns up, closing the song.
- 4:18 End.

1.4 Crew slut

The Central scrutinizer continues talking, introducing the next song, "Crew slut". This song
follows the verse-chorus structure and includes solos by Denny Walley on guitar and Craig Stewart on harmonica.
The verse has a characteristic vamp (F-E-D, A-C-A), played over a D by the bass as pedal note. This vamp
continues during the solo. The basis is thus D Dorian, but it gets mingled with D Mixolydian by the soloists,
who are playing the Mixolydian F# just as well. A crude earlier version of this song can be found
on the ZFT release "Chicago '78". There it's a part of a piece called "Paroxysmal splendor".

1.5 Fembot in a wet T-shirt

The opposition of tension and relaxation is more directly present in the "Run home cues #3" example
from the Movie scores section and
the chamber music section at the end of "Lumpy Gravy, part I". After the dissonant notes in
this section a little dialogue
follows with one saying "not okay" and the other one complaining in response "no, man, no, I
can go through this again?".
After this some charming consonants follow. Happiness has already come by. Controlled in "Jelly roll gum
drop" and "Deseri" from "Cruising with Ruben and the Jets". Euphorically in "What will this evening bring me
this morning" from "200 Motels". Here's one from "Joe's garage":

The harmonic basis in bars 1-4 is a I-IV alternation in E. Staff 1 in bar 1 adds in extra passing through chords: the II chord over I and
the V chord over IV. These passing through chords are responsible for making the opening sound so cheerful. Bar 5-6 have something
of the VII-I cadence of E Mixolydian.

1.6-7 On the bus - Why does it hurt when I pee?

Via interviews it is known that the guitar solos from "Joe's garage" were recorded live. They sound as if they stem from
the same recording sessions as the other songs, because Zappa recorded the accompaniment anew in the studio. The method
he applied for creating the illusion that everything got played simultaneously, he himself called xenochrony. How this
technique worked, and why he used it so intensively, can be followed in detail by comparing
"On the bus" to "Occam's razor", the original solo. Two sections are present
in the previous One shot deal from this study.
The outlines of "Why does it hurt when I pee?" are sketched on page 227 of the Ludwig study (see the references).
It's a compact rock song with an interesting instrumental interlude. The song has a basis in A minor/Dorian
with both F natural en F sharp being used. The interlude is a variation upon the sung part with its chord sequence
re-appearing in a different set-up.

1.8-9 Lucille has messed my mind up - Scrutinizer postlude

"Lucille has messed my mind up" is one of many examples of Zappa doing something one time only. In this case a sentimental ballad,
a slow love song following easy patterns. It's yet another example of him doing exactly what he himself claimed to dislike. See
the Real FZ book, chapter IV, section "purely a mistake", about his dislike of love songs. Stating for instance: "When they start lingering about love as a romantic concept -
especially in the lyrics of the sensitive singer/songwriter type - we're even one step closer to total mental decay".
This is a recurrent factor in his output,
that can be confusing. This particular song is also an example of reggae.

"Lucille has messed my mind up" is in A minor. The instrumental opening, bars 1-7, is using a subset of six notes from this scale. It's made up of A-B-C-D-E-G, thus
avoiding the F. You have to wait till bar 9 to know that the song is in minor for certain. The song displays a simultaneous use of 4/4 and 12/8, a very mild form of polyrhythms. Four beats can get subdivided into two or three ticks. The basis
is the reggae rhythm by the bass and the two rhythms guitars. They are consistently playing in 12/8, so I've notated this song in 12/8.
W. Ludwig, page 273, transcribed the lead melody of the two themes, that I've added to the example to show the polyrhythms more explicitly. These sung themes are in 4/4, so it's logical that
he chose 4/4 for his transcription.
The keyboard players and the drummer alternate between 4/4 and 12/8.
Since 4/4 is the standard in pop-music, you've also got some authors who prefer to avoid notating in 12/8. Then you get triplets all the time or
- when applicable - a note that two eighth notes should actually be played as a triplet (a fourth and an eighth note). These are all valid notational variants,
but what's more simple than noting that four times three is twelve. The reggae rhythm, that Zappa is using here, is standard. There's a weak downbeat
and a stronger accent on the third beat. The rhythms guitars are playing two ticks on beats two and four. The outlines of the song go as:
- 0:00: Bars 1-7 contain the instrumental opening bars, introducing the reggae rhythm. The keyboard players are improvising
during the intro.
- 0:15: Main theme. Bars 8-13 feature most of theme 1. It's sung over a chord progression. C mingled with Am (or Am7), Dm mingled with F (or Dm7),
G and Am. So it comes to rest upon the tonic at the end, rather than at the beginning.
- 0:49: Second theme, phrase 1 (bars 18-20 from the Ludwig transcription).
- 1:13: Second theme, phrase 2 (bars 21-24 from this transcription).
- 1:19: Main theme.
- 1:53: Second theme.
- 2:24: Playing around the main theme till the end of this song.
- 5:42: End. On the original vinyl album the "Scrutinizer postlude" was part of this song. They got seperated on the CD version.
"Scrutinizer postlude" is now an individual track of 1:54 minutes with the Central scrutinizer talking. At the end
he introduces the L. Ron Hoover character, head of the Church of Appliantology.

Act II

1.10 Tush-tush-tush - A token of my extreme

"A token of my extreme" is a relaxed song, part of a set of three such songs following closely upon each other. The others are "Lucille has messed my mind up"
and "Sy Borg", these last two with a slow reggae rhythm underneath them. With differents lyrics you could call these songs ballads. For "Joe's garage
acts II & III", Zappa could return to a number of unreleased songs he had in stock as well as guitar solos from the last tour. See the One shot deal section
for the "On the bus" solo. "A token of my extreme" draws upon a 1974 concert opener, called "Tush-tush-tush". This predecessor got released itself
on the later 1988 "YCDTOSA Vol. II" release. "Tush-tush-tush" is built over a I-VII alternation in F# minor (E-F# when the pick-up bar moves over to bar 1;
from bar 1 onwards you've got two bars with F#, followed by two bars with E). A bit later on, starting at 1:38, you
can also hear a II-I progression being used at the pick-up point, G#m-5 - F#m). Both Napoleon Murphy Brock and George Duke had the ability to improvise lyrics combining understandable parts
with meaningless and strangely pronounced text blocks. It creates an illusion of an interesting story being told and you're blaming yourself for
not understanding it to the full. You can listen to it again and the same thing reiterates. George Duke and Napoleon Murphy Brock also do this on
"Smell my beard" and "The booger man" from "YCDTOSA Vol. IV", for which songs they get most of the credit. Zappa makes fun of this with his introduction
to "Dupree's paradise" on "YCDTOSA Vol. II", another such example ("... confronted with a partial - how shall we say this - language barrier here.
We don't want to press the issue too much folks, but the chances that you figuring out what he [George Duke] is going to say during the song are nill.").
In the midi file below the lyrics aren't included except for the three
returning "Tush-tush-tush" notes that George and Napoleon jointly sing.

The three pick-up notes with a VII-I progression in the "Tush-tush-tush" example form the starting point for theme I from "A token of my extreme".
Its full melody is presented in bars 1-4. It's also played over an F#-E (I-VII) alternation by the bass, thus the same F# minor key is used again,
but the chords in this case are played softly
in the background and are mostly used for harmonic fill-in. The melody and the two bass pedal notes stand central. Bar 5, with just the Emaj7 chord gliding
downwards, makes the transition to theme II. The drummer beats syncopically through this bar: four dotted eighth notes, followed by two normal eighth on beat 4.
The remainder of the transcription is this second theme. It's made up of two phrases. The first, bars 6-9,
gets played three times with variations. Bars 6-8 are in A minor.
In bars 6-7 you have
the minor variant with a major 7th (G#). In bar 8 you get the Aeolian variant with a minor 7th (G natural). For bar 9 the music modulates to D Mixolydian.
Bars 10-13 are mostly identical, only some melody
notes are different because the lyrics have a different amount of syllables.
In bars 14-17 you get at a more serious variation. The notes for "cra-zy" are now B-G# instead of an only a G#. Notable is the chord used for the "-zy" syllable,
namely Ab. Hence I've notated G# as Ab at this instance. It implies a modulation, but the bass persists in playing A pedal, so a modulation doesn't
actually take place. Bars 18-22 form the second closing phrase of theme II. Bars 18-20 continue with D Mixolydian. Bars 19-20 contain improvised keyboard
notes along the Dsus4 chord, played lightly. Bars 21-22 are in C# minor (or Dorian, the A/A# that makes the difference isn't used). The keyboard is now
playing along Bsus2.

1.11-12 Stick it out - Sy borg

"Stick it out" is the oldest track from "Joe's garage", going back to 1971. At that point it was part of a sequence, known as the "sofa suite".
See the Just another band from L.A. section for a description of this suite. There you can find why it's partially sung in German.
When re-using this song for "Joe's garage", Zappa decided to keep this in and integrate it into the plot. The "sofa suite" remained unreleased for quite a while.
If it wasn't for its lyrics, "Sy borg" could be called a ballad. Its main themes can be found in the Ludwig study, pages 273-4.
Harmonically this song is quite complex, starting for instance with Em-C7-D. Because of this first chord Ludwig probably chose to notate
this song as if in E Dorian, but notes are getting altered all the time. The second chord already involves a Bb, played by the bass.
The keyboard solo in it is more stable in C Lydian.

2.1-2 Dong work for Yuda - Keep it greasy

"Dong work for Yuda" is standard blues. During the 1978 tour Zappa played a somewhat different version live.
A section from the latter edition can be found in the Hammersmith Odeon section of this study."Keep it greasy" goes back to 1976. Sections from both the 1976 and 1979 versions are included
in the FZ:OZ section of this study. Like the "Catholic girls" interlude, the 1979 rendition of "Keep it greasy" knows an odd meter.
This time it's a figure in 19/16, used as a vamp for the guitar solo.

2.3 Outside now

On "Joe's garage" Zappa depicted what can go wrong if you decide to start a career in the rock 'n roll business,
with the accent on sexual abuse. It's also an example of the always present two-sidedness in his ideas. On the album
sleeve we are warned that people exist who would like to make (rock) music illegal, but the so called central scrutinizer
presenting and commenting the little play on the album, gives you some reasons why it should be. Whatever the purpose (if
there is any), the play ends with the main character Joe winding up in prison, being able to play his music
and guitar solos only in his imagination. He wails:

"Outside now" is in Bb Lydian, determined by the bass movement in staff 3. It alternates bars with Bb and C in two different
meters (6/8 and 5/8). Otherwise the rhythm is even: a straight string of eight notes.
The lead instrumental melody of the riff moves freely through the scale, avoiding any attempt to form
a traditional 5th or 7th chord: the first seven notes are all the notes from the scale played once. The interval jumps
between the notes keep varying. The sung staff 1 on the other hand does to some extent follow the Am chord. The brass in bar
4 is specific for the 1987 execution. "Outside now" returns in the Perfect stranger section of this study in a version
for synclavier, called "Outside now again".

Act III

2.4 He used to cut the grass

"He used to cut the grass" begins with Joe trying to cope with a society where music has become forbidden. Most part of this
song is taken up by a guitar solo, sometimes interrupted by Mrs. Borg. There are four solos from "Joe's garage" available
in the Frank Zappa Guitar book:
- Outside now, pages 243-249.
- He used to cut the grass, pages 250-267.
- Packard goose, pages 226-242.
- Watermelon in Easter hay, pages 214-225.
Two sample bars from "He used to cut the grass" are included in the quartertones subpage from the Trance-Fusion section.

2.5 Packard goose

In the case of "Packard goose" the direction of the emotions lie mostly in the lyrics. The melody itself is fluid diatonic
material, that you could just as well use for a love song. Subtle and effective is a chord change in bars 5-6 compared
to bars 7-8, returning in bars 9-10 compared to bars 11-12. It's just the A# going to A natural, but it changes the climate
in bars that are otherwise mostly the same. Here it's sung by Joe for fulminating against imaginary reviews
of his guitar solos. Touching is also the re-appearance of Mary, just the soft intonation of her voice makes an impression.
Her little speech includes Zappa's favorite phrase "Music is the best".

It's also the non-imaginary Zappa himself, who once referred to rock journalists as people who know
nothing about music, who write for people who know nothing about music. His irritation stems from the time "Absolutely free" was released.
The album was for a rock album unprecedentedly complex and its details went unnoticed in reviews. There is more to this remark
however. He also knew that it would get quoted by these same journalists, who can always comfort themselves with the
thought that it's about their colleagues and not about themselves. Rock journalism is a strange business indeed. It's
the only type of journalism I know of where it is considered normal to have no technical knowledge about the subject
you're writing about whatsoever.
Their articles are mostly about the lives of the artist, the music gets only vaguely described by naming styles and mentioning
who's influenced by whom. It leads to bizarre individual reviews that don't contain any specific information about the music itself. Only when you're looking for a common denominator and
average things out, something more sensible comes out. Another song in which the lyrics are responsible for the impact
is an unreleased tribute Zappa wrote for his wife, called "Solitude". It was rehearsed in 1981 and premiered by the
Band from Utopia. It's known by fans via a bootleg copy, indeed a touching piece, still waiting for an official release.

2.6 Watermelon in Easter hay

Zappa's two most famous vamps have probably become the two ones from "Joe's Garage",
that are thus touching by their emotional impact. The "Outside now" vamp from above he himself
was much fond of, because he used it so often. For the 1984 solo on "Guitar" (1987) he returned to
the wailing "Watermelon in Easter hay" theme. Beneath are the theme in its 1984 phrasing
and the closing bars of the 1979 version. They go as:

These last two midi files lack the richness and warmth that is on the album. Not only because
of sound quality (at least on my pc), but also because my midi
editor can't do things as crescendo, decrescendo, glissando and vibrato. To the right: Zappa playing
"Watermelon in Easter hay" in 1988 (Barcelona concert).
Both "Outside now" and "Watermelon in Easter hay" are unusual solos in their use of meters. Zappa
normally plays over 4/4 in his solos, but these two have odd additional metres, namely 6/8 + 5/8
and 4/4 + 5/4. Apart from the phrasing, the 1984 version of the theme also deviates from the 1979
execution in its rhythm. The "Joe's Garage" one places the A of the theme on the fourth beat of the vamp,
whereas the "Guitar" version does this on the fifth beat. The vamp is a string of nine fourth notes, moving from
C# downwards to E over an octave and then going up again to D#. The chords formed by the vamp in the two bars are
IV 7th and I 9th of E. The E, being the lowest note of both the vamp and the bass, takes the weight of
being the key note, more than the first A of the bass. This gets confirmed by the coda at the end. The core of the guitar motif,
played over it at the beginning, is a D#-B-A-G# movement. The D# and B of bar 3 aren't part of
the IV 7th chord of the vamp, thus
extending the harmonic field to almost the whole scale. Likewise the A of the second bar isn't part of the I 9th chord.
The guitar coda, that's
eventually played over the vamp on "Joe's garage", is much more in line with vamp (which makes it functioning as a coda
so clearly recognizable). It only has an extra V chord added between the two vamping chords. It goes as IV (5th)-I (5th)
-V (both 5th and 7th). The closing bar contains I held (the E chord).
An earlier version of this composition is coming by as
"Watermelon in Easter hay (prequel)" in the
"Hammersmith Odeon" section. Other instances to raise our tears are the classical broken heart song "How could I've
been such a fool" from "Freak out" and the fragment from "You didn't try to call me", included
in the "Cruising with Ruben and the Jets" section.

2.7 A little green rosetta

The original recording of "A little green rosetta" is present in the Läther section.
At that point it got combined with an outtake from the later "Ship ahoy". With "Watermelon in easter hay" the story of "Joe's garage"
came to an end, but there was still space left on side 4 of the vinyl album, so Zappa decided to use the "Green rosetta" theme
to start a studio jam. The people working at Village Recorders could participate in the chorus.

TOUCH ME THERE

In 1979 Zappa produced L. Shankar's album "Touch me there" for his new Zappa Records label. Shankar had made some guest appearances during
Zappa's 1978 US tour. See also the previous Halloween section and the YCDTOSA section for "Thirteen".
The album consists
of five instrumentals with Shankar soloing on electric violin and three songs for which Zappa wrote the lyrics.
One of them, "Dead girls of London", is also known via YCDTOSA vol. V. The title track shows Zappa's flexibility.
During the seventies he took an anti-love song attitude on his own albums, but this one is a sensitive song, sung by Jenny Lautrec. Apparently
Zappa had no problems delivering the lyrics that go as "Touch me there, I like it. Touch me there, again. Touch me there,
some more" with several repetitions. On paper rather simple, but in combination with Shankar's music it works.

No more Mr. nice girl

For "No more Mr. nice girl" Shankar and Zappa co-wrote the music, all other music on the album is by Shankar alone. The opening
and outchorus are included in this section because it's such a merry feel good song. It opens with a syncopic disco type vamp in A Lydian,
with the chord progression I 7th- II. It's followed by a melody in E, played consequently by various instruments.
Then follows a violin solo, that ends with the repeated outchorus as presented below. The bass lick from the beginning returns,
whereas staff 2 contains a repeated E2 chord. Over this the violins play a sequence of 5th chords, followed by the keyboards,
doing a sequence of thirds.